tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77601286933445042902017-09-24T17:59:00.081-07:00One Man's OpinionRandom ramblings from a random guy.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-10934995929174723472014-03-01T13:02:00.002-08:002014-05-23T12:35:52.459-07:00Poltergeists?Years ago, my wife and I both worked in a building that had had a reputation for being haunted, even before the previous owner of the company we worked for had died. My wife was working late, sitting at the desk that used to belong to the now-deceased owner of the company, and her wedding and engagement rings started to feel a bit tight (which they do, occasionally). So she took them off and set them on the desk. (This was a Friday evening.) When she finally got done with what she was working on, she forgot to put her rings back on, and left them behind. When she got to my apartment (at this point in time, she was still living with her dad while we looked for a place to live together) I noticed that the rings were missing, and asked her about it. She realized that she'd left them behind, and said that she'd stop by the office and grab them on her way back to her dad's place. When I called her on Saturday, she said she hadn't been able to find them, so I went to the office to look for them. I turned that desk (figuratively) upside-down looking, and even searched the floor under it. THEY WEREN'T THERE. I would take oath on that. Both she and I looked and looked and looked, (she on Friday night, I on Saturday.) On Monday, I got into the office, and she was at the computer at that desk again, and I came in and sat across from her to chat before I clocked in. And there, right out in the open, not under anything or in any way hard to spot, were the rings,sitting there on the desk. I do not say that I believe in ghosts. I say that I have seen things that I cannot explain any other way. There is a difference.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-60838589196933993842014-02-02T08:27:00.000-08:002014-02-02T08:35:30.097-08:00Ask The Math Guy 3The Math Guy is Jim Yanni, a 53 year old senior at Webster University looking to start a new career, who is majoring in Math and is a lifelong Math whiz. He is happy to field questions from readers, and is available for personal tutoring sessions for $20 an hour with a money-back guarantee: if he can’t answer your question, there is no charge for the session. (e-mail him at glenohhara@yahoo.com or via the Women’s Journals at info@womensjournals.com) I am most comfortable with questions relating to algebra or pre-algebra, and although I’m willing to consider questions from other branches of Mathematics I would be reluctant to offer tutoring in anything higher level than that. Our question for today is, “How do we know that an irrational number is irrational?” Two issues ago, I explained where the term “irrational” comes from, and why in non-Mathematical usage, it has come to mean “crazy”. To summarize, “rational” means “can be expressed as a ratio” and “irrational” means “can’t be expressed as a ratio.” So if a number can be expressed as a ratio, it can be expressed as a fraction. In mathematical terms, then, we say that if a number is rational, it can be expressed as a/b, with b ≠ zero. So let’s examine a specific irrational number; we can use \/¯2, but this argument would work for any root larger than one of any prime number. We are told that \/¯2 is irrational, and therefore the decimal representation of it never ends or forms a repeating pattern. The question is, “how can we be sure of that, given that it’s infinite? Maybe it starts a repeating pattern after the 2 billionth decimal place; how would we know?” We know because of the definition of a rational number. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that \/¯2 was a rational number. Then it could be expressed as a/b (b ≠ 0). That would give us the equation \/¯2= a/b. Squaring both sides of the equation, we would have a^2/b^2=2. Multiplying both sides of the equation by b^2, we get a^2=2b^2. But if a^2 has a factor of 2 in it, it has an even number of them, because it has twice as many factors of 2 as “a” does. The same is true for b^2, since it has twice as many factors of 2 as “b” does. But if b^2 has an even number of factors of 2, then 2b^2 has an odd number of factors of 2. Therefore, a^2 cannot equal 2b^2, since they have a different prime factorization. But for \/¯2 to be rational, it has to. Therefore, \/¯2 must be irrational. Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-7164952126323308782014-02-02T08:23:00.000-08:002014-02-02T08:23:33.606-08:00Ask The Math Guy 2 The Math Guy is Jim Yanni, a 53 year old senior at Webster University looking to start a new career, who is majoring in Math and is a lifelong Math whiz. He is happy to field questions from readers, and is available for personal tutoring sessions for $20 an hour with a money-back guarantee: if he can’t answer your question, there is no charge for the session. (e-mail him at glenohhara@yahoo.com or via the Women’s Journals at info@womensjournals.com) I am most comfortable with questions relating to algebra or pre-algebra, and although I’m willing to consider questions from other branches of Mathematics I would be reluctant to offer tutoring in anything higher level than that. There are many vocabulary words in Math that students are usually just told to memorize, words that either have no equivalent in day-to-day language, or, worse, mean something entirely different in day-to-day language than they do in Math. The Math Guy believes that if you can explain how the word came to have the meaning or meanings that it has, it will be easier to remember. Last time, I explained the origin of the terms rational and irrational as they apply to numbers. This issue’s question is, where does the term “Commutative Property” come from? It sounds like it should have something to do with getting to and from work. For those of you who have forgotten, the Commutative Property is the property that says that 3+5 is the same as 5+3, and 3x5 is the same as 5x3. In other words, it is the property that is in effect if the order in which you perform an operation doesn’t matter. As we saw above, addition and multiplication are Commutative. Subtraction is not (5-3 is not the same as 3-5) and neither is division (6/3 is not the same as 3/6.) The question is, why do we use the term Commutative for this property? The word “commute” in modern usage has the meaning of going to and from work. But the basic meaning of the word is “to change”. If you commute a prison sentence, you change it. Of course, you can only shorten it because legally, there is not the option of lengthening it. But the original meaning of the word is to change. Back in the late 1800s, a great many people started going to and from work by streetcar and subway; they paid for their fares using what we would call weekly or monthly passes. At the time, those were referred to as “commutation passes”, because they were changing a bunch of smaller fares for one larger fare that was a better buy. That’s how the word came to be applied to going to and from work. So in math, “commutative” means “we can change the order”. Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-70088424856814247802014-02-02T08:15:00.000-08:002014-02-02T08:18:57.968-08:00Ask The Math Guy 1 The Math Guy is Jim Yanni, a 53 year old senior at Webster University looking to start a new career, who is majoring in Math and is a lifelong Math whiz. He is happy to field questions from readers, and is available for personal tutoring sessions for $20 an hour with a money-back guarantee: if he can’t answer your question, there is no charge for the session. (e-mail him at glenohhara@yahoo.com or via the Women’s Journals at info@womensjournals.com) I am most comfortable with questions relating to algebra or pre-algebra, and although I’m willing to consider questions from other branches of Mathematics I would be reluctant to offer tutoring in anything higher level than that. There are many vocabulary words in Math that usually students are just told to memorize, words that either have no equivalent in day-to-day language, or, worse, mean something entirely different in day-to-day language than they do in Math. The Math Guy believes that if you can explain how the word came to have the meaning or meanings that it has, it will be easier to remember. So today’s question is: what is the deal with “rational” and “irrational” numbers? Numbers can’t be sane or crazy; is it just that irrational numbers are kind of weird and hard to wrap your head around? The answer is: kind of. A “rational” number is simply a number that can be expressed as a ratio of two other numbers: One X for every three Y, or two P for every five Q, for example. Any number that can be expressed as a ratio can also be expressed as a fraction; fractions are simply a variation on the theme of ratios. Irrational numbers cannot be expressed as a ratio. There is no fraction that truly equals the square root of two, for instance. Therefore, it can never be fully expressed in decimal form; it can only be approximated. Granted, it can be approximated well enough to suit any practical need; 1.4142135623 is closer than you’re likely to ever need to know it, but it isn’t really the answer. If you multiply 1.4142135623 by itself, you get 1.999999979325598129, not 2. The ancient Greeks didn’t believe that there was such a thing as an irrational number; they were absolutely convinced that any number in nature could be expressed as a ratio. In fact, they considered it a crazy idea that there could be such a number. So that’s how the words “rational” and “irrational” came to mean “sensible” and “nonsensical”; the concept of an irrational number was considered a nonsensical idea, and eventually the concept spread to any nonsensical idea, and by extension, a rational idea was a sensible idea. So yes, after a fashion, it is true that “irrational” means what it does in Mathematics because an irrational number is a weird concept and hard to wrap your head around. But the Mathematical definition came first; the definition of “nonsensical” evolved from that, not the other way around. Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-71026218836626785342011-05-20T20:00:00.000-07:002011-05-20T20:01:42.329-07:00The Death of BalderLoki's downfall was that he could not resist a challenge. When he cut off Sif's golden hair, and was forced to bargain with the dwarves for magical, dwarf-forged golden hair to replace it, it was not because he begrudged Sif her beauty and wished to mar it; it was because Thor, deep in his cups, had rashly boasted to Loki of the impregnability of the defenses of Sif's quarters.<br /> Thus, when Balder was troubled by nightmares and Odin foresaw that Balder's death was fated to be soon and Freya obtained the promise of all things in the Nine Worlds not to harm him, Loki found the challenge irresistable. He would stand and watch the gods reassuring themselves of Balder's invulnerability by attacking him with every manner of weapon, and ponder the problem.<br /> "Surely," he thought," Freya could not have gained the promise of EVERY substance. There are too many, and most of them are blatantly harmless. The trick, then, is to find some way to hurt him with something apparently harmless."<br /> He thought of making a whip or a rope out of grass, but it occurred to him that Freya might have been clever enough to think of that. He didn't want to try something that might work and have it fail; it would blunt the effect of his prank if what finally drew blood was his fourth or fifth attempt. So he disguised himself as an old woman and went and spoke with Freya. Through his guile he tricked her into revealing that she had not bothered to obtain the promise of the mistletoe bush. The details of that conversation are recorded elsewhere, but that's a different tale entirely. As he hurried away, Loki thought to himself, "This is even better than I'd hoped. It will be far easier to make an arrow from that bush than to weave a whip from grass."<br /> So he made his arrow, and brought it back to where the gods were sporting with Balder. It wasn't a particularly fine arrow; the mistletoe bush was truly not a particularly likely source of weaponry, but if it had been, Freya would not have ignored it. The arrow was on the small side, and rather flimsy, almost a dart, but it was strait and sharp. Loki found a short bow that he could fit the arrow to, and made ready to fire at Balder's shoulder. Then he hesitated. He had no intention of actually killing or even seriously injuring Balder; he planned to wing him, just to draw blood. Still, it occurred to him that as fearful as the gods were for Balder's safety, they might respond badly to seeing him blooded; indeed, they might do violence upon the one who had bloodied him, especially if that one were Loki. Most of the gods had reason to be short-tempered with Loki, for he had played almost all of them for fools at one time or another, and gods even more than men have little tolerance for that.<br /> Then he spotted blind Hod.<br /> He doubled up in silent laughter. As usual, Hod was taking no part in the game. Loki sauntered up to him and poked him in the ribs.<br /> "That can only be Loki," said Hod.<br /> "None other," replied Loki.<br /> "Well?" said Hod.<br /> "Why aren't you joining in? Why don't you throw things at your brother?" asked Loki.<br /> "Because I can't see where he is," replied Hod, reasonably enough. "Besides, I have no weapon."<br /> "Here," said Loki, "take the arrow that I was about to use. I'll stand behind you and guide your hand."<br /> So Loki gave Hod the bow and arrow, and helped him aim at Balder's right shoulder.<br /> "There now," said Loki, satisfied. "Release it just so and you'll hit him safely in the shoulder."<br /> "That's silly," said Hod, "Why the shoulder? If I could hurt him at all, I wouldn't be doing this. Aim me centered, so I'll be sure not to miss."<br /> Loki, realizing his mistake instantly and thinking quickly on his feet, hardly paused a moment. "Certainly, Hod," he said glibly as he adjusted Hod's aim for Balder's left shoulder. "There," he lied smoothly, "Now you're pointed right at his heart."<br /> Hod, however, had begun to wonder. Loki's reputation as a trickster preceded him, and he might be up to almost anything. Then again, he might be doing just what he claimed--helping Hod to take part in a group activity for a change, when all the other gods had been ignoring him again. And what harm could he be up to? Balder WAS invulnerable. Hod didn't want to pass up his one chance at participating on a mere unfounded suspicion, nor did he wish to repay Loki's kindness with accusations. It did occur to him, though, that had Loki's intentions been less than honorable, Loki had adroitly manuvered him into being the one who had chosen to aim for the heart, taking Loki smoothly off the hook. Therefore, just in case his suspicions were justified when he let loose the arrow Hod actually aimed halfway between the two points Loki had given him. "This way," he thought, "I should still have enough margin for error not to miss and look foolish, and even if I can hurt him, it should just be a flesh wound-painful, but not dangerous."<br /> The shot was a beauty, strait and powerful. It struck midway between Balder's two shoulders, at the base of his throat, and passed right through him. He gurgled once and was dead.<br /> In roaring silence all the gods in the hall turned to stare at Hod and Loki. None could speak. Loki, as stunned as any of them, read in their eyes that they placed full blame for what had happened on his shoulders. None would have believed that he had meant no harm. He sensed that were he to try to speak it would only break the spell that held the hall in stasis, and he would be torn limb from limb. Carefully, slowly, he edged to the door, then turned and fled. He was gone before any could think to follow.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-88568767586322956342010-09-11T15:08:00.000-07:002014-03-01T13:06:45.618-08:00Thought for the Day: What the Problem is with Modern American EducationI had a thought yesterday; in my Educational Psychology text, we were covering the four styles of parenting (Diana Baumrind): Authoritarian parenting (in which parents provide structure but little affection and too little opportunity for children to develop their independant ability to provide their own structure), authoritative parenting, (in which parents provide both a reasonable level of structure and plenty of affection, but still allow kids to learn to be self-motivated), indulgent parenting, (in which parents provide plenty of affection but insufficient structure) and neglectful parenting, (in which parents don't provide enough of either structure or affection.) Of course, authoritarian parenting is held up as the ideal to strive for, which is certainly reasonable. But one thing that is NOT addressed is, if one must err, should one err in the direction of authoritarian or indulgent? After all, these styles are not simply isolated points; they exist on a continuum, and (ignoring neglectful, which has nothing positive to be said about it) one could be in the authoritarian range, but tending more towards authoritative, or one could tend more toward indulgent. Which is the less harmful way to err?It also occurred to me that those styles could apply to teaching as well as parenting. Decades ago, American schools were unquestionably authoritarian; nowadays, we have not only recognized the value of the authoritative style, but we are so concerned with NOT being authoritarian that we err consistently on the side of indulgent. The problem with this is twofold: first, this is probably a large part of the reason why so many kids never learn the basic skills in math, reading, and writing that they need; we're afraid to hurt their feelings by telling them that they have failed, so instead we let them slide by with incomplete skills; second, it is always possible, if one starts out by erring on the side of authoritarianism, to ease up a bit, gradually, until one reaches a good balance. But if one starts out erring on the side of indulgent and finds that one's class is out of control, it is almost impossible to reassert control; certainly, it cannot be done gradually, but would need to be done by harshly and punitively overshooting the desired level of control, and then easing back up again. That process would be extremely difficult and painful for all concerned; certainly, it would be more painless (and therefore more appropriate) to choose the first method.Also, since we definitely err in the direction of indulgent with young children these days (after all, they can usually be dealt with fairly easily without too much harshness, and we are definitely afraid of dampening their spirits by too much structure) as an educational system, we are guilty of using the more painful second mentioned system: we start kids out by treating them indulgently, and then, when they get older and harder to manage, we try to tighten the reins on them. But when a teenager has been given a certain amount of freedom and autonomy as an elementary school student, he or she is going to resent being given less as an older student, and will resist and fight authority. This leads to middle and high schools that are out of control and downright dangerous, in large part because we didn't establish a solid basis of authority and regimentation when the kids were young and more easily taught control.This is not to say that we need to return to the days of totally authoritarian teaching; the authoritative style is certainly preferable. But we need more authoritarianism and less indulgence in our schools than we now have; what we have now is leading to kids who are, indeed, used to thinking for themselves and being autonomous, but who have no idea of how to structure their lives, no idea of how to accept outside structuring, no ability to stick to unpleasant tasks that need to be done, and no idea of why they SHOULD do so. This is doing no one any favors.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-66278484279467452452009-09-04T08:40:00.000-07:002009-09-04T08:44:03.911-07:00Lyrics to "The Ostrich", by Steppenwolf:We'll call you when you're six years old<br />And drag you to the factory<br />To train your brain for eighteen years<br />With promise of security<br />But then you're free<br />And forty years you waste to chase the dollar sign<br />So you may die in Florida<br />At the pleasant age of sixty nine<br /><br />The water's getting hard to drink<br />We've mangled up the country side<br />The air will choke you when you breathe<br />We're all committing suicide<br />But it's alright<br />It's progress folks keep pushin' till your body rots<br />Will strip the earth of all it's green<br />And then divide her into parking lots<br /><br />But there's nothing you and I can do<br />You and I are only two<br />What's right and wrong is hard to say<br />Forget about it for today<br />We'll stick our heads into the sand<br />Just pretend that all is grand<br />Then hope that everything turns out ok<br /><br />You're free to speak your mind my friend<br />As long as you agree with me<br />Don't criticize the father land<br />Or those who shape your destiny<br />'Cause if you do<br />You'll lose your job your mind and all the friends you knew<br />We'll send out all our boys in blue<br />They'll find a way to silence you<br /><br />But there's nothing you and I can do<br />You and I are only two<br />What's right and wrong is hard to say<br />Forget about it for today<br />We'll stick our heads into the sand<br />Just pretend that all is grand<br />Then hope that everything turns out ok.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-4867358980523460792009-05-04T07:36:00.001-07:002009-05-04T07:54:21.452-07:00Speed limit laws:The speed limits on most highways, and many surface streets, are set ridiculously low, and should be raised by at least 10-15 miles per hour. This would put them at the level that most people drive at anyway.<br /><br />It will be argued that doing so would increase accidents, and accident-related injuries and deaths. It might, although since most people are already driving at these speeds, it could be argued that it would have little effect. But let us assume that the argument is valid.<br /><br />The argument is that anything that increases injuries and deaths is bad, and indefensible, that any law which reduces such things is a good one. If that were true, why stop at 60 MPH on the highways? There are still deaths and injuries at those speeds. There would be fewer if we lowered the speed limits to 50. Fewer still at 40. Even fewer at 30. So perhaps we should lower all highway speed limits to 30 MPH. After all, it would decrease accidents, injuries, and fatalities if we did.<br /><br />But that would be silly. (Almost as silly as the next step in the progression: eliminate automobiles altogether, and go back to Conestoga wagons. After all, it would relieve our dependance on foreign oil, and be much better for the ecology.) No one would be willing to put up with speed limits of 30 MPH on the highways; it would take too long to get anywhere. Clearly, there is a limit to the amount of speed restriction that people are willing to accept for the sake of increased safety.<br /><br />The same argument holds for 60 MPH speed limits. They are unreasonably low, and driving at that speed makes it take too long to get where you're going. That's why almost nobody obeys them. Which brings me to my second reason for opposing the current speed limits: in a Democracy, any law that is consistently broken by a majority of the populace is a bad law; it engenders a hostile relationship between the people and the police, for one thing, and for another, it is clearly being voted on and repealed all the time.<br /><br />Don't believe me that a majority of the people disobey the speed limits? Try this experiment: on an open highway, with little enough traffic that it's easy to get around slower-moving cars, but enough traffic to give a reasonable statistical sample, with no obvious or known regular speed traps and good weather/road conditions, set your cruise control at 5 MPH over the speed limit. Count how many cars you pass, and how many pass you. If the ratio isn't at least 3-1 in favor of cars passing you, I'll be astounded.<br /><br />The best solution would be to temporarily suspend all speed limits on a given road (while maintaining laws against reckless driving) and observe the road for a week or two, ignoring any time that the traffic conditions didn't allow for free driving. Find the speed that less than 10% of the cars exceed. Set that as the speed limit.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-36004780494009413482009-03-07T07:43:00.000-08:002009-03-08T05:50:42.036-07:00Hate crime legislation:Just saw a production of "The Laramie Project" put on by my son's school. I'm somewhat baffled by those (including, so far as I can tell, the entire cast of this very well-done performance) who seem to feel that the story of what happened to Matthew Sheppard is a good example of why there should be hate-crime legislation. It seems to me, in fact, that that story is a perfect example of why there is no need for hate crime legislation.<br /><br />For one thing, here we had a hate crime committed in what was not, in fact, a particularly gay-friendly community. (Some would say that that's a fairly major understatement.) Yet the perps were in jail within 24 hours of the crime being discovered, one escaped the death penalty by pleading guilty but still received consecutive life sentences, the other was convicted and escaped the death penalty by the intervention of Matt's father. So how, exactly, would hate-crime legislation have helped? Would they have been apprehended sooner? Would their punishment have been more severe?<br /><br />What they did was a horrific crime, and the community recognized that and acted accordingly. There was not need for hate-crime laws to make people recognize the severity of the crime, or to take proper action.<br /><br />Further, would what they did have been any LESS horrific had their motivation been hatred of "little wimpy guys" rather than "fags"? Would it have been any less horrific had their motivation been hatred of "rich boys"? Would it have been any less horrific if there had been no hatred involved at all, simply a desire to rob Matthew and not leave a witness?<br /><br />On the subject of "hate speech", would their crime have been any less horrific had the murderer, in his confession, used "approved" language to refer to Matt. ("He looked like a homosexual" rather than "He looked like a fag") If, say, they had used completely neutral, non-judgemental language in describing their crime, would that in any way have lessened the horror?<br /><br />I say no. The severity of their crime was defined by their actions, not their words, not their motivations. I don't care WHY they did it; what they did was appalling. The fact that I am ALSO appalled by their attitude towards gay people and somewhat annoyed by their language is beside the point; I don't believe that having appalling attitudes should be a crime in and of itself, nor do I believe that having those attitudes makes what is already an appalling crime any worse. Nor do I see how having a law making the committing of such a crime for the "wrong reasons" an additional crime would have in any way changed their sentences, or the way they were treated. The legal system in this case worked, without any help from "hate crime" legislation.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-73789904239375337522009-01-26T16:09:00.000-08:002009-01-29T12:54:59.583-08:00Horrorscope * Jim Yanni<span style="font-size:78%;">Note: Horrorscopes have no basis in scientific fact, and if you take this nonsense seriously, you're an idiot.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The stars show the kind of day you'll have: 5=Explosive, 4=Perky, 3=Stultifying, 2=Traumatic, 1=What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br />Aries: (March 21-April 19) *** Stop at midday and take a deep breath. Hold until dinnertime, longer if you're in LA. When you get off the roller-coaster of life, what would you really like to wish for? Make that wish with determination, then continue to lead a boring life. Tonight: Act like it's Friday; eat fish and go to sleep alone by 9:30.<br /><br />Taurus: (April 20-May 20) *** Showing up for work could be more important than you realize. Examine what you need to say in order to butter someone up. If you tell that precise lie, look at the writing on the wall. Tonight might not arrive until tomorrow.<br /><br />Gemini: (May 21-June 20) *** Visualize more of what you want than you really want, and pull out of that parking space cautiously. Your ability to read between the lines earmarks your hallucinations, but also be willing to take a long walk off a short pier. Tonight: Touch base with someone at a distance; there's this brand-new technology called the telephone.<br /><br />Cancer: (June 21-July 22) ** Clearly, you cannot do everything all at once, but that's okay, you have at least ten minutes. How you deal with being overwhelmed and the questions you ask will determine when you will have that nervous breakdown. Ogle a sexy stranger. Tonight: A black eye and a cold compress.<br /><br />Leo: (July 23-August 22) **** Spoiled brats clearly demand your attention. You might have overestimated your pals, as hard as that is to believe, as they are showing off their ignorance. Don't be disgusted, be amused as others self-destruct right in front of you. Conversations about a project need to be clear; a shame you're having them with blithering idiots. Tonight: Just say yes.<br /><br />Virgo: (August 23-September 22) * Toss yourself into a pit of quicksand; see if it isn't more painless that way. You might want to think about a more efficient way of handling a problem or following through on a key goal. Or not, it really doesn't matter as the situation is hopeless anyway. Open up to better living through chemistry. Tonight: Valium.<br /><br />Libra: (Septmeber 23-October 22) *** Depending on your phase in life, you'll either get laid or wear pampers. If you are single, love could be walking in very soon, in the cosmic sense. If you are creative, you could surprise yourself by managing to paint within the lines for the whole picture. Tonight: "Naughty and nice" is a great fantasy.<br /><br />Scorpio: (October 23-November 21) ***** Staying anchored makes it hard to dance. However, a family memeber is ready to follow orders implicitly. Do you want to order him or her to his or her knees? It might be amusing, you know. Tonight: At home, x-rated movies.<br /><br />Sagittarius: (November 22-December 21) *** Your fragrance defines your world. You need to make a decision about what to wear, preferably by noon. A change of underwear or more perfume might be in order. Make that decision, and you will be amazed by what hits the fan. Tonight: Talk about this decision interminably with a soon-to-be ex friend.<br /><br />Capricorn: (December 22-January 19) ** You have a way and a style that shoots blanks, especially when it comes to managing your finances. You might want to update your financial system to be more effective and cost-efficient, or at least stop using an abacus. Tonight: Don't knock yourself out; the answer will be no no matter what.<br /><br />Aquarius: (January 20-February 18) *** A new beginning is impossible. Don't kid yourself. Stop considering what you want to change and decide how to deal with what you have. A decision made today is pretty much the same as a decision made any other day. Know what you're capable of and plan accordingly. Tonight: As usual, you will be doing well to make it to second-string.<br /><br />Pisces: (February 19-March 20) *** Take care of yourself, no one else will. Your ability to state the obvious astounds many people. Explain to these people why they are idiots. Tonight: Play Russian Roulette.<br /><br />If January 26 is your birthday: ** Greet this bizarre year with repugnance, crying and idiocy. You have no ability to communicate clearly. Double and triple-check all messages and meetings. If you cannot be clear, you might as well be annoying. Creativity baffles your thoughts this year, just like most years. The result will be that you will likely stamp your foot a lot. Your magnetism is in dire need of having it's poles reversed. Sorting through everyone's laundry could be your biggest challenge of the year. If you are attached, work on not being. Let your sweetie stand without you; it's the only way they'll get into the limelight. Aquarius adds to your hyperactive energy. Try barbituates.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-70744245729018542502009-01-20T18:55:00.000-08:002009-01-22T10:42:19.812-08:00A little perspective, part 2:Don't get me wrong, I voted for him; I'm glad that he was elected. He's almost certain to be better than his predecessor, and might well be the best president in a long while. But I'm getting more than a little bit fed up with all of the hype regarding Barack Obama. He's a president, not a messiah. His election means that we're done with eight years of a Republican administration, not that we're done with 200+ years of racial tension. Hopefully, he'll have some good ideas about how to turn the economy around, or at least will find somebody to listen to who does. But he's not going to wave a magic wand and fix things, and no matter what solution he tries, there will be people who think it's a fine idea, and others who will consider it to be like fighting a fire with gasoline. He's NOT going to "bring us all together". As with any other president, his opponents will attack any action of his that can POSSIBLY be described as a failure as proof that he shouldn't have been elected, and will dismiss anything that he does that CAN'T possibly be described as a failure as something that he had very little responsibility for, and claim that he's taking credit where it isn't due.<br /><br />Most importantly, I wish that people (and particularly the news media) would make up their minds as to whether (A) his election is important because he's the first man of significantly black descent to be elected president, or (B) that it's important because we all set race aside when we went to the voting booth. I'm inclined to go with (A) myself, although either claim COULD be made. But if (A) is true, then (B) CANNOT be. If it was important to see a black man elected president, if African Americans everywhere are celebrating the historic event, if it is the culmination of the civil rights movement and a symbolic exclamation point to Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech, then it's OBVIOUS that we did NOT all set race aside when we entered the voting booth. In fact, I would venture to say without any fear that I'm misspeaking that far, far MORE people were VERY aware of race when they entered the voting booth this year than they have EVER been before. I think it's very likely that almost 100% of voters were quite aware of the fact that Obama was of African descent when they voted. Some, like myself, simply didn't care; we were voting for him because he was not a Republican, not George Bush, not even as much like Bush as McCain was, NOT because he was black. Others might have had to consciously put race aside, and vote for him in spite of his race, if they were somewhat racist but recognized the need for a non-Republican in office. And many, many others voted for him at least in part BECAUSE of his race; apparently, voting FOR Obama because of race is OK, but voting AGAINST him because of race would have been racist. Even voting FOR McCain because of race would have been racist.<br /><br />Double standard? No, of course not. How silly of me.<br /><br />Seriously, I don't OBJECT to people at least in part voting for him because of race, and being happy that he won because of race; I can understand the idea of wanting to be part of a historic moment. I just wish that they wouldn't try to simultaneously claim that his election was a victory for racial colorblindness. You just can't have it both ways.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-47944021177136008192009-01-20T12:46:00.000-08:002009-01-29T12:47:17.446-08:00More on gay marriage:"This sort of marriage is not in the best interest of children." "God has a plan for marriage and this isn't it." "Allowing this kind of marriage will pave the way for all sorts of moral depravity."<br /><br />Does this sound like quotes from the opponents of gay marriage? Actually, these are comments from the 1960s on the interracial marriage of one man and one woman -- by Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-13867458532174647762008-12-19T11:46:00.001-08:002008-12-19T11:47:37.247-08:00A little perspective:I saw the following article the other day:<br /><br /><a class="yschttl" onmouseover="return window.status='http://www.charlotteobserver.com/nation/story/420188.html'" onmouseout="window.status=''" href="http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTTkmD9ktJ8q4AjB7QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHZkMjZyBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=12d2vndju/EXP=1229801475/**http://www.charlotteobserver.com/nation/story/420188.html">Ga. judge jails Muslim woman over head scarf</a><br /><br />And it occurred to me that many people in this country might feel that the woman's refusal to remove her head scarf was much ado about nothing; why not simply remove it and be done with it, if security requires it? After all, we all have to take our shoes off to go through the airport security checkpoints, right? And while that's a nuisance, we all do it anyway.<br /><br />But let's have a little perspective here: according to her culture, it is improper for a woman to bare her head in public. Asking her to remove her head scarf is roughly equivalent to asking a mainstream American woman to remove her shirt. We may find it hard to accept the equivalence; we may find it a very odd cultural taboo. But it isn't OUR reaction to removing headgear that is relevant; TO HER, it was essentially the same. If we would be appalled at a woman being cited for contempt of court because she wouldn't bare her breasts in public, we need to be appalled at this woman being so cited for refusing to bare her head. At least, we need to be equally appalled if we claim to believe in religious freedom and tolerance; to refuse to do so is to deny her religion the rights that more mainstream religions have of defining their own cultural taboos. If we are going to do that, we may as well scrap the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution and just admit that we don't REALLY believe in religious freedom &amp; diversity except for those religions that are more or less like ours.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-59120530463087210792008-12-12T14:30:00.000-08:002008-12-12T14:39:16.479-08:00Re: Abortion and fetal rights:Let us suppose, just for a moment, that a fetus is a fully-fledged, fully human being with all of the rights possessed by any other human being. (A debatable supposition, but one I'm prepared to grant for the sake of argument.)<br /><br />Do **I** have the right to inhabit a woman's body against her will? Do YOU? Does any other fully-fledged human being? No? Then why would anyone claim that a fetus does?<br /><br />In fact, I don't have the legal right (Moral right? Possibly, but that's a different matter altogether) to require a woman (not even my mother, were she still alive) to do so much as to give me a blood transfusion. Not even if my life depended on it. If an unquestionably living, fully-fledged human being has no legal right to require something as trivial as that, even to save his life, a fetus has (or should have) no legal right to require a woman to act as life-support unit for nine months. (Or a month, or a week, or a day.)<br /><br />Religions can teach that abortion is wrong, immoral, unethical. I may even agree with them in most cases. But that has nothing to do with whether it should be prohibited legally. Not until and unless we are prepared to make far more trivial impositions upon a person's life required by law.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-53726749155891692008-12-11T16:22:00.001-08:002009-03-10T03:42:57.444-07:00Gay marriage, Prop 8 & Pat Boone's column:The following is an e-mail that I sent to Pat Boone after reading his column on the subject of Gay Marriage &amp; Prop 8 in California; to see the column I was responding to, click on the following link: <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=82830">http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&amp;pageId=82830</a>.<br /><br />You make some interesting points; slavery was abolished and women won the right to vote through due process, not through demonstrations and violence. But the deliberative process was undoubtedly influenced by demonstrations and campaigns by people who felt vehemently about those issues, and while violence is never the answer in such situations (it is, in fact, counterproductive, as witness the reaction against some of the violent anti-slavery actions) it is definitely necessary to make a sufficiently loud noise for one's cause to be noticed; rights are not won by sitting quietly by and hoping that the public mood shifts.As with the anti-slavery and women's sufferage movements, the gay rights movement has its extremists; I won't try to deny that fact. But if having extremists invalidated the truth to a political movement, and rendered that movement unworthy of success, then there would still be slavery, and women would still not have the right to vote. Both the Constitution and the bible were used to justify slavery, but that didn't make it right; no more does the fact that the Constitution is silent on the issue, and the bible, arguably, condemns homosexuality, nor the fact that Webster's Dictionary has a definition of marriage that excludes homosexual unions, make a homosexual marriage wrong. Up until the 1950s and 1960s, in some parts of the country, it was illegal for people of different races to marry; nowadays, most people would be appalled at any suggestion of passing such a law. The current resistance to homosexual marriage is a very similar situation: society is taking it upon itself to tell people who they can love, or whether or not they can marry the person they love, based on an arbitrary standard that has nothing to do with whether they would be able to do for each other those things that a married couple needs to be able to do. Millions of homosexuals are involved in relationships that are more stable than many state-approved marriages, even without the ability to make it legal and official; denying them the various rights that automatically come with marriage -- inheritance, hospital visiting priveleges, the right to make emergency medical decisions for one another, among many others -- is simply unjust. You and your co-religionists are free and welcome to teach that homosexuality is wrong and immoral. But the rest of us, who do not share your religious attitudes, should have the right to ignore your religious teachings. Even if your religious attitudes are held by the majority of the populace. That is the beauty of the first amendment and its freedom of religion clause. That is why measures like Prop 8 are wrongheaded and counter to the spirit of the United States Constitution, and it is in that spirit that people (like Brad Pitt) speak of the "Right" of homosexuals to marry. I have attempted to keep the tone of this letter civil, knowing that it is more likely to be read in its entirety if I do so; I hope you will not feel that I have failed in this regard if I point out that there has historically been (and no doubt currently still is) a great deal more violence directed against homosexuals by those who consider what they do to be immoral and evil than there has ever been directed against straights by homosexual activists; therefore, there is a far more direct "line" from the horrors in Mumbai to those opposed to gay marriage than there is from Mumbai to attempts by gays to secure the right to marry the partner they love.I do not ask you to accept that homosexuality is a morally neutral choice, in terms of your religious beliefs. I do ask you to understand that not everyone shares your religious beliefs, and our country is built on the bedrock that says that the minority cannot be forced to accept the religious teachings of the majority. Those of us who support the rights of homosexuals to marry may still be a minority (the prevalence of successful popular initiatives to deny them that right makes it hard to argue otherwise) but our minority religious attitudes should not be trampled by the majority simply because they can be; it should require a clear-cut societal need to allow that to happen. There is no clear-cut, non-denominational societal need to deny homosexuals the right to marry their partners. It should be civilly allowed, even if those marriages are not recognized by many religions.<br /><br />(P.S. It should not matter; my arguments are the same in either case, but in case it DOES matter, I am a happily married heterosexual man.)<br /><br />Yours in a spirit of open discourse,Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-88962338289078130412008-11-20T14:18:00.000-08:002008-12-12T14:21:22.183-08:00Gas prices:Given: gas prices have dropped from approximately $4.00/gallon to as low as $1.55/gallon,<br /><br />Given: while there may be a few more unemployed people not driving in to work than there were, and a few people for whom money is tight enough that they're restricting their discretionary driving, there is almost certainly not enough of this to account for demand being reduced enough to account for the precipitous drop in prices,<br /><br />Given: The crash of the stock market has caused speculators to stop buying up gas futures.<br /><br />Conclusion: the "demand" that drives gas prices up is not the demand from the poor shmucks driving their cars; it is the demand from speculators buying up commodities because they are valuable. Therefore, the next time oil prices spike, we should remember that the solution is not to try to convince Main Street to drive less; it is to control the ravening appetite of Wall Street for hoarding gasoline.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-7150374045404093842008-09-11T11:50:00.000-07:002016-02-21T20:34:14.312-08:00I Watched the debate between Christopher Hitchens & Dinesh D'Souza last nightI am left with many questions I would have liked to pose to Mr. D'Souza, had I been able to work my way to the front of the line.<br /><br />1) Who is a more honorable, ethical, BETTER man: one who does not believe in God, has no hope or expectation of reward, no fear of punishment, but does his poor, flawed human best to live an ethical life BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, or a man who believes in God and does his best to behave because he is afraid of punishment and/or hopes for a reward?<br /><br />2) If your answer is the latter, you're just wrong. If you cannot imagine why a person who does not believe in God would do their best to live an ethical life, then I suggest that you do not truly understand what it means to be ethical. But if your answer is the former, what kind of God rewards the latter while punishing the former?<br /><br />3) YOU hope to get into heaven, even though you admit that you don't deserve it, by virtue of SOMEBODY ELSE'S blood sacrifice, and you accuse ME of trying to dodge personal accountability? I do not look to get into heaven, even if there is an afterlife and it does exist; I do not deserve it. But I also do not expect to be sentenced to hell, even if there is an afterlife and it does exist; I do not deserve that, either. The one is an unreasonably generous reward, the other an unreasonably harsh punishment, for anything that anyone can accomplish in a few decades on earth. If there IS an afterlife, and a just God, then there must be some alternative to those two options, a life more or less like this one, neither heaven nor hell; that is what I and almost everyone else deserves, and if we get anything other than that, the "God" who judges us is not just.<br /><br />4) You spoke of Pascal's wager. First of all, is a person who chooses to believe because he is hedging his bets really a moral person? This relates back to questions 1 &amp; 2. Secondly, do you believe that a person can really CHOOSE what to believe? Granted, I agree with Mr. Hitchens that I would not believe in the teachings of Christianity if I could, but I also could not if I wanted to, any more than I could CHOOSE to believe that I could fly to the moon by flapping my arms hard enough. Furthermore, I suggest that Pascal's wager is flawed: the suggestion that you have nothing to lose if you accept Christianity as it is generally taught and accepted is not necessarily true. Suppose, for a moment, that there IS a God, but he is more just than you credit him with being, and life is a test: if you accept a flawed and barbaric religion because you are afraid to question it, for fear of the supposed punishment, you fail the test. But if you deny that flawed and barbaric religion, you pass the test. Then there would, in fact, be a potential loss for accepting Christianity and being wrong as great as the potential loss for denying it and being wrong. I choose to gamble that IF there is a God (which I very much doubt) he is more just than standard teaching would suppose, and rewards GOOD behavior (or at least honest attempts at such) rather than blind faith.<br /><br />5) You mentioned Mr. Hitchens' "obsession" with atheism, his "evangelical" atheism, and suggested that it was one thing to disbelieve, but it was another, much worse thing to attempt to persuade others to not believe. You drew the parallel to your own disbelief in unicorns, and suggested that since you to not make a big deal out of that disbelief or attempt to dissuade others from a silly belief in unicorns, Mr. Hitchens should treat his disbelief in your God and your religious beliefs in the same way.<br /><br />I will admit that I am not AS evangelical an atheist as Mr. Hitchens, but will posit to you that if believers in unicorns had much social and political power, and made a habit of attempting to justify their attempts to gain more such power, and to use that power to restrict what you and yours could do or believe, and justified all of this by their belief in unicorns, then you might find yourself inclined to be a bit more evangelical in your disbelief.<br /><br />6) We can debate all night and into tomorrow whether Hitler was an atheist, a Christian, an atheist who had formed an alliance with the Vatican, a worshipper of Kali, or of the Norse goddess of death Hel. But I think we can all agree that there have been bad people -- terrible people -- who professed Christian belief. Whether we speak of those who went on Crusades in the middle ages, or those who burned heretics at the stake, or those who engage/d in religious wars in Ireland (on both sides), or those who professed Christian belief and owned slaves prior to the Civil war, or those who joined the Ku Klux Klan afterward and lynched blacks (and others) who they felt had done things that deserved such punishment, or many others, there are many people throughout history who have done TERRIBLE things, yet who professed Christian belief. In many cases, they actually used their Christian beliefs to rationalize those evil acts. So unless you want to have your religion held responsible for ALL of those acts, please do not hold atheists, or even atheism, reponsible for the actions of those atheists who have done evil things (like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and the others that you keep referring to whenever attempting to "prove" that an atheist society is inevitably an evil one.) For every Stalin you can name, I can name a Torquemada. If you challenge that statement by attempting to compare body counts, or by actually attempting to see whether you can, in fact, come up with a longer list of evil atheists than I can of evil Christians, all I can say is, IF you can prove that there have been fewer evil Christians throughout history than there have been evil atheists, and/or that evil Christians have done less harm than evil atheists, I will posit that you are damning your own side with faint praise.<br /><br />7) You, and Christianity in general, seem to make much of the fact that we are all flawed, that no human can claim to be perfectly good, as though this demonstrates that without a religion or a belief in God we are all doomed to evil, chaos, and villainy. But while it is unquestionably true that no one is perfect, I will dispute the Christian tenet that this shows that mankind is inherently sinful. Many people, while far from perfect, are still quite kind, pleasant, honorable, ethical people. The fact that they are not perfect does not render them inherently sinful; if you owned a car that was a beautiful, sleek, shiny new car except for one tiny scratch in the paint, that never needed maintainence beyond an occasional oil change, and that got 75 miles to the gallon, would the fact that it did have a tiny scratch in the paint, DID need the occasional oil change, and didn't get 150 miles to the gallon (and was therefore clearly not perfect) cause you to consider it a basically flawed car? No, it would be a spectacularly GOOD car; there's a huge difference between imperfect and "basically flawed". Yet one of the sins that I hold Christianity accountable for is the fact that it has spent centuries convincing as many good people as possible that their minor imperfections rendered them "basically evil", convincing them that the important thing is not leading a good life, but "accepting Christ as your personal savior".<br /><br />These will do for a start; I may come up with more later.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-22084328000511405822008-08-22T18:51:00.000-07:002008-09-12T12:03:46.944-07:00Too High A Price<div align="left">The two men stared at each other across the table, undisguised hostility apparent in each face. The prisoner wore an electric-yellow prison jumpsuit; his arms were shackled behind his back, and his legs were shackled to the legs of the chair he sat in. His swarthy skin glistened with sweat from the heat of the blindingly bright naked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">lightbulb</span> that hung just in front of him. His dark hair was long and unkempt, his moustache drooped as if it shared his exhaustion, and he had a five-day growth of dark beard on his face. His eyes squinted, but he tried to hide his discomfort and to appear unconcerned by the situation. His captor wore a blue United States military uniform. His hands were clenched into fists, quivering with obvious tension as he leaned over his end of the table, glowering at the captive. His collar was unbuttoned, sweat stained his armpits, and his Navy cap was tossed carelessly on the back of a chair just behind him. He, too, glistened with sweat, his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">blonde</span> hair just as unkempt as that of the prisoner. He was closer to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">cleanshaven</span>, however; he had only half a day’s worth of stubble darkening his chin, and it was much less noticeable than the dark growth on the face of the prisoner.<br /><br />“Once more. Where and when is your organization going to strike next? Make things easy on yourself, why don’t you?” His voice expressed many emotions to anyone who cared to listen; primarily, he was furious, but he was also frustrated, exhausted, and behind all of that, perhaps a bit frightened.<br /><br />“Or what? You won’t let me sleep? You won’t feed me? You’ll make me sit here and smell your sweat and blink in the bright lights for the rest of my natural life? You forget, I was prepared to die in the attack. What can you possibly threaten me with?” The prisoner was unsuccessful in attempting to sound calm, but he was clearly less upset than his captor was. His accent was noticeably Middle Eastern, but not overly hard to understand.<br /><br />The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">blonde</span> navy man slammed his hand down onto the surface of the table. His gaze narrowed still further, and he began to move around the table. “You’re probably right. There’s probably nothing I can do to get any information out of you. But by God, I have to try. So maybe beating you to death won’t accomplish anything other than getting me court-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">martialed</span>, but at least I’ll know that I made the effort.” As he spoke, he approached the prisoner, raising a hand in a fist.<br /><br />Before he struck, the door slammed open behind him and a commanding voice rang out. “Belay that, lieutenant. That’s not how we do things, and you know it.”<br /><br />The lieutenant froze in place, fist raised, trembling with the effort to ignore that voice. But his training was too thorough, and he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">couldn</span>’t bring himself to disobey a direct order from his superior officer, at least not while that superior officer stood looking on.<br /><br />“I said belay it, lieutenant. You’re dismissed. I’ll take over here.” The captain was tall, even taller than the lieutenant, who was himself not a small man. He was impeccably dressed in a crisp uniform, his cap placed precisely where it belonged on his head, his posture ramrod-straight, his dark hair closely cropped, his square jaw perfectly clean even though it was ten at night, his chiseled features stern but controlled.<br /><br />Slowly, the lieutenant lowered his arm, still trembling. He turned to the captain, came to attention, and offered a salute. “Sir, we need to know what he can tell us. We won’t get it from him just by asking nicely.”<br /><br />“And we won’t get it from him by beating it out of him, either. You said so yourself. And if we did, what then? We obey the laws here, lieutenant. We’ll just have to defend ourselves without his information. Brutality is never the answer.”<br /><br />“Yes sir.” Clearly unconvinced, the lieutenant remained where he stood, standing at attention.<br /><br />“Fortunately, I managed to stop you before you did something that I’d have to put you on report for. Get out of here, lieutenant. Go get cleaned up and go home. You’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ve</span> done everything you could.”<br /><br />“Yes, sir.” Stiffly, in as perfectly military a posture as his exhaustion could manage, the lieutenant stalked out of the room. When the door closed behind him, the captain turned his attention to the prisoner.<br /><br />He paused for a moment, as if waiting to make sure that the lieutenant would not be coming back in for his forgotten cap, then allowed his posture to relax. He took off his cap, tossed it onto the table, and sat facing the prisoner, shaking his head and smiling sadly. The prisoner continued to glower, but remained silent.<br /><br />“I know what you’re thinking, you know. You figure it’s all an act. He was playing the bad cop; I get to be the good cop. Having contrasted his behavior as what you’d expect, I come in and act civilized and rational, and hope to impress you enough to earn some cooperation. I can’t blame you for thinking that; I certainly would, if I were in your position. And the sad thing is, we really DO need your cooperation, so I have to try to win your respect enough to find out what you know. But I don’t expect it to work; you really believe that your actions and those of your co-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">religionists</span> are right and proper and necessary. I don’t suspect that there’s anything I can say in the next couple of hours that can change that. So let’s just sit and talk for a while for appearance’s sake; then I’ll send you back to your cell and I’ll go home to bed.”<br /><br />The prisoner looked up, and squinted as the light dazzled him. Seeing his discomfort, the captain reached up and flicked off the light, then stood and walked in the near-dark back to the door, switching on the normal overhead lighting in the room, then returned to his seat.<br /><br />“You’re right. It won’t work.” His voice was almost inaudible, a dry rasping sound that was painful to hear. The captain poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table, wordlessly walked around the table to the prisoner, and held the glass to the prisoner’s mouth. Gently, he tipped it to allow the prisoner to drink, and managed to get the entire glass down the prisoner’s throat without spilling a drop. Then, wordlessly, he returned to his seat, placed the glass on the table, and returned his gaze to the prisoner.<br /><br />“How old are you, son?” His voice was calm and measured, with more than a touch of sympathy in it. The sympathy seemed genuine.<br /><br />The prisoner paused for a moment, seeming to try to understand what useful knowledge he would be surrendering by answering the question. Unable to detect any trap, he answered. “Twenty two.”<br /><br />“I’m thirty eight. Been military almost as long as you’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">ve</span> been alive. I have a son just ten years younger than you, a daughter who’s five. You have any kids?”<br /><br />Again, the prisoner paused, searching the question he was being asked for sensitive information. Finding none, he again answered. “No. I have a nephew, though. My sister’s son.”<br /><br />The captain smiled. “Son, I’d ask what makes a young man who <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">hasn</span>’t even experienced fatherhood fanatic enough to try to blow himself up along with a whole bunch of people who he’s never met and who’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">ve</span> never done him any harm, but I know the answer. It’s because you ARE that young that you can be that fanatical. You’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">ve</span> been told that those people are your enemies just by virtue of belonging to a culture that your mentors say threatens your culture by its very existence. And you’re too young to know enough not to trust somebody else to pick your enemies for you. Heck, half the men in my command are no better; if I told them to take a plane and destroy a target in “enemy” territory, they’d take that plane and, if necessary, heroically dive it right into the target, blowing themselves to bits but “accomplishing the mission”. Such loyalty can be a marvelous thing, if properly used. I try very hard not to abuse it. I’d tell you that your leaders have abused your trust, but you <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">wouldn</span>’t believe me, so why bother?”<br /><br />“Indeed, why bother?” The prisoner allowed himself a small smile, but it no longer held the mockery or the hostility that it had held before. They spoke for another twenty minutes, the captain asking nothing that seemed to be sensitive information, and the captain fed the prisoner a small loaf of bread soaked in stew, then saw him returned to his cell.<br /><br />When the captain returned to his desk, he scribbled a few notes detailing what minor information he’d been able to finesse from his conversation with the prisoner, directed the memo to the department where it might possibly be of use, and left for “home”, once again perfectly military in his bearing.<br /><br />“Home” was a hotel room; he was assisting here in D.C. for the weekend; his family and his true home were in New York City, a few hours flight away. He could have slept on base, but for the couple of days he would be here, it was just as easy to stay in a hotel, and it gave him a bit of a chance to unwind. He tossed his cap on the bed, unbuttoned his uniform shirt halfway, and poured himself a carefully measured shot of Jameson’s from the bottle on the dresser. He was hungry, but tired enough that he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">wasn</span>’t sure if he wanted to stay awake long enough to eat.<br /><br />“That was quite a performance this evening. Even I was impressed.” The voice came from behind him, well into the room; he was sure that there had been no one there a moment before, and no one could have gotten there from the door without walking right past him. He whirled and saw a man of medium height and build, a reddish face, dressed in an expensive-looking business suit, with short hair and arched eyebrows, two horns like those of a young goat at his temples, and a forked tail trailing behind him. He wore a sardonic smile, and seemed totally at ease.<br /><br />“How did you get in here?” The captain’s service pistol was in his hand and pointed unwaveringly at the intruder, who seemed not the least put out by that fact.<br /><br />“Such an unimaginative question, Captain. Surely it’s apparent that I can go anywhere I please?”<br /><br />“Don’t give me that. Anybody can buy a devil costume, even if it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">isn</span>’t anywhere near Halloween. Put your hands up and don’t move.”<br /><br />“As you wish, Captain.” The intruder raised his hands as if surrendering, and then, suddenly, was gone. No puff of brimstone, no flash of light, just gone. The captain whirled, searching the room for the man who’d been there only moments before. The room was empty.<br /><br />“Really, Captain Stone, it gets so dreary having to make these demonstrations whenever I want to do business, but I suppose it is a necessary part of the experience. But can we dispense with the silliness now?” The voice came from behind him, halfway across the room from where the intruder had been at first. The captain whirled, found his opponent, sighted his gun squarely on the man’s midsection, and fired.<br /><br />The intruder never flinched. There was no way that the shot could have missed, not at that range; the captain was, of course, an excellent marksman. But there was no result of the shot; not only did the intruder show no signs of injury, but there was no damage to the room; the lamp behind him was untouched, no hole appeared in the bland, unmarked wall of the room, there was no sound of a ricochet. It was as if the gun had fired a blank. The captain fired twice more, with the same lack of result.<br /><br />“Really, captain, you can’t kill evil with a gun. I would have thought that that would be obvious to such a civilized man.”<br /><br />The Captain slowly lowered his gun. Cautiously, without taking his eye from his visitor, he checked the remaining load in the gun. There <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">didn</span>’t seem to be anything wrong with his bullets; if anyone had tampered with his weapon, they’d done it very subtly, and when had it ever been out of his possession long enough for someone to do so? “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Okayyyyy</span>….” he shrugged, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">reholstering</span> the gun. "So maybe you are what you look to be. I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">ve</span> never believed in any of that, but I make a point of believing my own eyes, at least to a point. So what do you want?”<br /><br />“<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Isn</span>’t it obvious? I have a proposition for you.”<br /><br />Stone stared at him for a long moment, measuring. “No deal. I don’t know what you have planned, but even if I don’t really believe in souls, if the devil exists, I’m not about to take a chance on selling mine. You’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">ve</span> got to know that.”<br /><br />“Nonsense; I know no such thing.” The devil, if the intruder was in fact the devil, smiled jauntily. “But if you don’t want to know how to prevent a major American city from suffering nuclear holocaust, I suppose there’s no need for me to hang around.” And with that, he was gone, winked out of existence as if he’d never been there.<br /><br />Captain Stone recognized the move for what it was, and resisted calling out for his visitor to return, as was clearly intended. He tried to put the incident out of his mind and return to his preparations for bed. He picked his glass of whiskey back up from where he’d set it when the intruder had first spoken; he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">didn</span>’t even remember having set it down, but there it was, untouched. He felt a powerful temptation to down it in a swallow and pour another, but decided that he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">didn</span>’t dare muddle his thinking or lower his inhibitions just now; he set it back down again, still <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">unsipped</span>.<br /><br />He <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">couldn</span>’t stop thinking about what his visitor had said. He tried for almost an hour to convince himself that it was a fraud, that it was simply a taunt that had no reality, thrown out to tempt him into listening. But there WERE terrorists out there; his activity earlier in the day reminded him that the threat was all too real, and it was everyone’s nightmare that those terrorists might have acquired nuclear technology. Frankly, he was amazed that such a thing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">hadn</span>’t happened long since. He was reasonably certain that the unwelcome guest was still invisibly present, and if he only spoke a word of invitation, would return bodily. He sensed that he’d regret it if he did, but the more he considered the matter, the more sure he was that if he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">didn</span>’t, and the threat proved not to be a bluff, he’d regret that, too. Ultimately, he persuaded himself that there was no harm in listening. He could always refuse an unacceptable proposition AFTER hearing it. There was no need to reject a deal, even a deal with the devil, unheard.<br /><br />As soon as he came to that conclusion, before he even spoke a word of invitation, the intruder was back, acting as if there had been no break in the conversation at all. “So; tomorrow morning, a terrorist will plant a bomb in the heart of a major American city. Millions will die, and the country will take a huge hit financially, and an even huger hit to its morale. Unless you choose to do business with me; in that case, the bomb will malfunction, will be found unexploded and will be defused, and the man who plants it will be captured. Millions of lives will be saved. What do you say, Captain? Is one man’s soul so precious as to be worth allowing the country you love to suffer such a loss? That would seem rather selfish to me; it would seem to me that it would be a rather cruel, heartless…no, SOULLESS thing to do, to allow such suffering if one could prevent it.”<br /><br />“How do I know that what you’re telling me is true?” The Captain was clearly conflicted; his brow furrowed and his eyes already haunted.<br /><br />“My dear Captain, I NEVER lie.” The expression on the visitor’s face was frank and open, and clearly showed shock at the suggestion that anything he’d said could be questioned.<br /><br />“Bull. You’re called the Prince of Lies.”<br /><br />“By people without the wit to recognize the truth when they hear it, or the ability to face the fact that they’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">ve</span> made mistakes when dealing with me. No, Captain, I always speak the truth. Not always the whole truth, I will admit. I occasionally shade the truth I speak so as to be somewhat misleading. But you can count on what I say to be absolutely factual.”<br /><br />“How do I know that? I have, after all, only your word on the matter, and if you <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">AREN</span>’T truthful, then your assurances that you are are hardly very meaningful, are they?”<br /><br />“True enough. But consider this; we’re considering a contractual agreement. If I fail to live up to my end, the contract is invalid and you will not be held to your end.”<br /><br />“Not good enough. Suppose I sell you my soul on condition that you prevent that nuke from exploding; it doesn’t explode, the city is saved, you come to collect. How do I know that it WOULD have exploded if I hadn’t done the deal? Perhaps you simply have knowledge of what WILL happen, but no power to affect it. Perhaps there will be no disaster, regardless of what I do. Then I would have sold my soul for nothing but an illusion of having saved the day.”<br /><br />The devil’s brow darkened. He seemed to grow larger, more threatening. The air in the hotel room became oppressive, almost as if a thunderstorm were brewing within the room. “Do I LOOK like I have no power over events? You know from close experience how much power evil has over the world. You know that the reason you’re even listening to what I have to say is because you’re surprised that the event I’m predicting hasn’t happened long since.” His voice reverberated like thunder.<br /><br />Then he was back to being a normal-sized individual with a jauntily sarcastic expression on his face. He continued in a normal tone of voice, without a pause or break in the speech, as if his manner had never changed. “Really, Captain, that’s going to be a decision you’re going to have to make on your own. I can’t offer you proof, but I assure you that if you don’t deal with me, a major American city will be destroyed at oh-eight-thirteen tomorrow morning. Search your feelings; you know in your heart that the threat is real. I have no need to make empty threats. I have the power to make evil happen or not happen; that’s what I DO. The question is, are you willing to make a huge personal sacrifice to save millions of people from a horrible, untimely death? To save their out-of-town family members from the terrible loss? To save your country from a terrible blow?<br /><br />Captain Stone had always been quite capable of decisive action when it was called for. “Very well. Bring out the contract. I’ll sign.”<br /><br />“Sign, Captain? You’re thinking that this transaction is finalized by your affixing your name to a contract, written in your own blood on a piece of parchment made from human skin? No, Captain, you misunderstand. Signing your name to a contract doesn’t cost you your soul, no matter what that contract may say. Even if I could find a judge and jury anywhere in the country who would rule in my favor, no matter how clear the contract language might be, it still wouldn’t mean anything. I admit, I’ve sometimes insisted on the written contract in the past, when dealing with people for whom it meant something, but even then, it was a purely symbolic thing. No, more than signing your name is needed for you to surrender your soul.”<br /><br />Stone’s face showed surprise, then puzzlement, and finally curiosity as his visitor made this speech. Finally, he asked, “So what IS required?”<br /><br />“For you to sacrifice your soul, Captain, you must perform an action so evil, so appalling, so terrible, that you will never again be able to face yourself in the mirror without flinching. So horrible that no amount of rationalizing will ever allow you to think of yourself as a decent human being.” He gestured theatrically, and at his side materialized a small child. The girl was perhaps three years old, with dark, curly hair, an olive complexion, and wide dark eyes. She stared around the room in silent wonder, but seemed unafraid and openly curious. She wore a plain brown flannel shift . “You must rape this child, and then break every bone in her body before finally killing her.”<br /><br />Stone was stricken. He tried to cover it with anger. “Absolutely not. No. Get out. What kind of person do you think I am?”<br /><br />The devil smiled insultingly. “I KNOW what kind of a man you ARE, Captain. That’s why I require this; it will change the kind of man you are into the kind of man I want you to be, irrevocably. You were willing enough to sell your soul when it was an intellectual exercise involving nothing more horrible than signing a piece of parchment; what did you THINK it would mean to lose your soul?”<br /><br />“True enough, but now that you’ve been kind enough to make it clear to me what the price really means, the deal’s off. That’s too high a price.”<br /><br />The devil shrugged. “If you say so, Captain. If this one little girl’s life and pain are more important than the millions of children who will die, some at the edges of the blast slowly and agonizingly from radiation burns, if it’s more important to you to keep your precious hands clean than to save them, I’ll just have to take what pleasure I can from their deaths. That, and the guilt you’ll feel for having failed to save them.”<br /><br />“People die and suffer every day.” Stone’s face was contorted in agony as he tried to convince himself of the truth of what he was saying. “I can’t save all of them, not even at the price you’re charging. At least I contribute as little as possible to that suffering. It’s better to accept that fact than to actively increase the sum total of human suffering in a vain attempt to lower it.”<br /><br />“But it ISN’T a vain attempt in this case, Captain. If you brutalize this one little girl, millions WILL be saved. Isn’t that ‘lowering the sum total of human suffering’ “?<br /><br />“It’s just wrong. One can’t determine right and wrong by Mathematics.”<br /><br />“Would it make a difference, Captain, if I told you that she was the daughter of the man who will plant the bomb that will kill all those millions of people?”<br /><br />“Of course not. She didn’t choose her father; it isn’t her fault.”<br /><br />“How about if I told you that she will grow up to be a radical fanatic who will very persuasively recruit suicide bombers to attack your country, and the mother of the greatest terrorist of all, who will be the one to finally defeat and destroy Western Civilization? Who will plunge the world into a thousand years of rule by a medieval, harsh version of Islam? Would that make a difference? Just because she’s cute and innocent now, Captain, doesn’t mean that she’ll always be that way.”<br /><br />Stone hesitated, torn for long moments, his face haunted. “I…I can’t. I just can’t. It’s just wrong. I could, maybe, manage to kill her to prevent all of that, but the rape, the torture, there’s no excuse for it. I can’t and I won’t.”<br /><br />“So civilized, Captain. You’re a tough nut to crack. Very well, then, if you would sooner see your own son and daughter die horribly than hurt this poor little moppet, I guess I’ll just have to go.” He began a theatrical sweep of his arm.<br /><br />The captain was across the room in a heartbeat, and immobilized the devil’s arm in an iron grip before he’d even consciously thought. “WHAT did you say?”<br /><br />The devil smiled an insincerely apologetic smile. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I neglect to mention? The city in question is New York. Your children, your wife, your parents, brothers and sisters, will all be among the millions to die. Does that make a difference? I thought that for such a civilized man as yourself, such selfish considerations wouldn’t make any difference. Surely, if you wouldn’t do what I want to save MILLIONS of strangers, it can’t make any difference if a handful of those victims are actually people you care about personally? If ONE of them is YOUR little girl?”<br /><br />Stone released the devil’s arm, and sank to a sitting position on the bed, his head in his hands. “It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t make a difference in the final decision, but God help me, it DOES make it much harder.” He straightened, his head coming up with a manic glittering in his eyes. He sprang from the bed, dashing toward the hotel phone. “I’ll warn them! I can’t save everyone, but I can get my wife and kids out of the city.” He picked up the headset, put it to his ear. When he heard no dialtone, he depressed the cradle hook several times in rapid succession.<br /><br />“I’m sorry, Captain. Having trouble getting an open line?” The devil’s words were calm and his tone sympathetic, but his face blazed with sadistic pleasure. “Perhaps you’d have more luck with your cell phone?”<br /><br />The captain paused, and, no longer moving with manic energy but rather hesitantly, as if anticipating what would happen, crossed the room to where he’d left his cell phone. Picking it up and turning it on, he seemed unsurprised to see the message “unable to retrieve signal” appear.<br /><br />He sat for a moment, his eyes unfocussed, his shoulders slumped. Then, the manic energy reappearing in his eyes, he leaped to his feet. He grabbed his cap and his keys from the top to the dresser, and headed toward the door.<br /><br />“It won’t work, Captain. There isn’t time.” The smile on the devil’s face was smug.<br /><br />Stone turned in the doorway. “There’s plenty of time for me to commandeer a chopper from the base. My clearance will allow it. I can be in New York in three hours. Load my family on and be back out of there long before oh eight hundred.”<br /><br />“If everything went smoothly, I suppose that might be true. Alas, your chopper will have some minor mechanical problems. Nothing too severe, but they’ll delay your takeoff for a few hours. You won’t even have time to get INTO New York to say a tearful last goodbye to your family and hold them while you all romantically die together. No, you’ll be airborne, approaching the city but not yet close enough to be within the blast zone when the explosion happens. You will be close enough to get a very good look at the blast, though.”<br /><br />Stone stood in the doorway, his right hand on the knob, playing with his keys with his left hand, weighing his options, for a long minute. Finally, he shrugged, closed the door and returned to the room, tossing his hat and keys back onto the dresser. He moved as though to sit on the bed again, but as he came within ten feet of the devil, he launched himself at his tormentor, striking out with all of the pent-up fury he could muster. His initial blow was a right hand that impacted squarely with the devil’s face; he’d planned a flurry of follow-up blows, being, of course, an expert in hand to hand combat, but he’d anticipated his initial blow having some effect; when it didn’t, it threw him off-balance, and he was forced to abort the rest of his flurry.<br /><br />That blow, had it landed on any human being, no matter how large they might have been, would have produced some movement on their part; even if they were braced for it, their head would have snapped back at least an inch or two. The devil seemed to be a rather normal-sized individual, and rather lean and wiry; by rights, he should have been knocked off of his feet and into the wall. But for all of the effect the punch had on him, he might as well have been a granite statue, and Stone felt agony in his hand that radiated all the way up his arm. He was reasonably certain that he’d broken at least one bone in his hand, probably more. Holding his right hand with his left, he sank to the bed again.<br /><br />“When attempting to fight pure evil, violence only weakens yourself and strengthens the enemy.” The devil grinned, his tone that of a lecturer addressing a backward student. “You see, Captain, there is no ‘thinking outside the box’ here. You have two choices. You commit the vile action I want from you, or you allow your family (and a few million other innocent victims) to die horribly. Those are your only options. What is your choice?”<br /><br />Stone sat for long minutes absently nursing his wounded hand, his eyes haunted, before he stood and began to undo his belt.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Hours later, after it was done, he once again sat on the bed, tears streaming down his face, his tortured face bearing no resemblance to the controlled, self-assured face that he had worn the previous evening. He wondered idly if he’d ever be able to sleep again, and rather hoped that he wouldn’t. It had been some minutes since the little girl’s screams had stopped, but he could still hear them and he was sure that he would always hear them. The wall clock read “8:22”; the devil, smiling widely, picked up the television remote and switched on the set. The reception was poor, but good enough for Stone to hear the announcer, who was apparently giving an emergency news report.<br /><br />“…a nuclear device was found just minutes ago in the heart of the New York financial district. It had malfunctioned, or it would have exploded before being found. A suspect has been apprehended near the device, and is being questioned by authorities even now…”<br /><br />Stone let out a ragged breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “It worked, then. They’re safe.”<br /><br />“Safe enough, I suppose, Captain. A shame about the child, though. She would have been quite an effective advocate for peace and moderation if she’d only been allowed to grow up.”<br /><br />Stone’s head snapped up. “That’s not what you said! You said…”<br /><br />“I said nothing, Captain. I merely ASKED if it would make a difference if I told you that she would be instrumental in your country’s downfall. I didn’t say that she WOULD be, and when you indicated that it wouldn’t make any difference if I did, I let the matter drop. Had you said that it made a difference, I’d have said, ‘What a shame; she won’t be.’ You don’t mean to tell me now that it DID make a difference in your decision? Pity.” But in the devil’s eyes, there was amused gloating, and not a trace of pity.<br /><br />Stone’s eyes blazed with repressed fury for a moment, but then, slowly, the light was extinguished, replaced with resigned anguish. Then his attention was brought back to the television, as the announcer’s voice rose several pitches in timbre and took on a tone of horrified energy.<br /><br />“This just in: apparently, the bomb that failed to destroy New York was not the only one planted last night; I have just received a report that Los Angeles was destroyed minutes ago by what has been estimated as a ten megaton blast…”<br /><br />Stone looked to the devil with all trace of animation gone from his face. “Any others?”<br /><br />“That’s all.” The devil grinned hugely. “For today.”<br /><br />***<br /><br />A week later, New York was destroyed by a nuclear bomb planted by another terrorist.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center">(Copyright 2008)</div>Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-63951344513752466982008-08-22T18:48:00.000-07:002008-08-22T18:51:14.373-07:00THE PROFESSOR WILL NOW DEMONSTRATE(A CONCLUSIVE ANSWER TO THE AGE-OLD QUESTION: WHICH CAME FIRST, THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG)<br /><br /> People frequently treat the question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" as an insoluble question, one of those mysteries of life that we will never know the answer to. Nonsense. "How does Dick Clark stay so young?"--now there's a puzzler. But the chicken or egg thing is eminently solvable by simple logic.<br /><br /> As with any other question, one must be careful to ask exactly what it is that one wants the answer to. Here, for instance, if the question is really simply whether chickens predate eggs or vice versa, the answer is easy and requires very little thought. Eggs predate chickens. There were fish eggs, dinosaur eggs, insect eggs, all kindsa eggs long before there were chickens.<br /><br /> If, on the other hand, what you really want to know is whether chickens predate chicken eggs or not, that's another question entirely. Still not terribly difficult for The Professor to answer, mind you, but one that actually requires the careful logic of a trained professional. Given that what obviously happened is that at some point in time some pteradactyloid laid an egg and a chicken hatched out of it, the question becomes "Is an egg that is laid by a pteradactyloid, out of which a chicken hatches, a chicken egg?" Thus, the question is a question of just what defines a chicken egg. Is a chicken egg something which, by definition, comes out of a chicken, or is it something that a chicken comes out of? Or is it one of those things you buy at the supermarket in a styrofoam twelve-pack labelled "grade A"?<br /><br /> If by definition a chicken egg is one of those things you buy at the supermarket, then clearly chickens came first. After all, there were chickens long before there were supermarkets. But while these things clearly are chicken eggs, I hardly think they are an exclusive definition. After all, if they were the exclusive definition of what constitutes chicken eggs, then all those eggs which don't make it to the supermarket, but which chickens hatch out of, wouldn't be chicken eggs.<br /><br /> On the other hand, if by definition a chicken egg is something out of which a chicken comes, then clearly the egg would come first. But we've already acknowledged that the grade-A's from the supermarket are chicken eggs, and I've never heard of a chicken coming out of an egg bought at the supermarket. (Don't write to tell me if you have heard of such a case -- it's irrelevant. I hope you're not going to try to tell me that any egg that gets eaten and which no chicken therefore ever comes out of isn't a chicken egg.)<br /><br /> Therefore, clearly, a chicken egg is something which comes out of a chicken. Ergo, the chicken comes first.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760128693344504290.post-34942836494690878602008-08-22T11:02:00.000-07:002008-08-22T11:19:46.659-07:00The Tale Of Titania Cat And Oberon CatHi. My name is Titania. That's pronounced "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tuh</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">tahn</span>-ya", not "Tie-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">tain</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ee</span>-uh". I'm named for the Queen of the Fairies in some old play or something. That's the name my humans gave me, obviously. There's not much point in my telling you my real cat name; you couldn't pronounce it, and probably couldn't tell it apart from the sentence, "My food dish is empty," in cat talk. I'm a smallish black girl cat with white on my nose, my chin, my paws, and my belly. My brother is Oberon, which is the King of the Fairies in that same old play. He's a bit larger than I am, grey with the same white markings that I have. Sad to say, he doesn't make nearly as good a king, of fairies, cats, or otherwise, as I do a queen. Not to say anything bad about him, mind you, but he's not the most kingly type; I think he could probably be dominated by a particularly forceful cotton ball. Or maybe one that wasn't particularly forceful. And he's not the brightest kitty in the litter, either, not that that keeps him from being <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">kinglike</span>. And both of these lacks on his part lead to the story I'm about to tell you. It happened many years ago, when we were both much younger. Mind you, even then we weren't exactly YOUNG, but now we're both elderly kitties. Then we were sort of middle-aged. (We're the same age, being from the same litter; as of last May, we were sixteen, which in kitty years is something like seventy-five for a human.) Anyway, our human had to move out of his home, and was going to be staying temporarily with a friend, who already had two cats living with him. He didn't want to impose any more than he already was, so rather than moving us with him, he asked his girlfriend to put us up for a while. Of course, there were already two cats living with HER, too, but she had a bigger place, and anyway he was more willing to ask the favor of her. She agreed, but it turns out that the cats at her place weren't real happy with the arrangement. They didn't feel that the place was big enough for four cats. We tried to tell them that it was only temporary, but they didn't want to listen. To be honest, I can't say that I blame them. It was THEIR house, after all, and nobody had asked THEM whether they minded company. Still, it made for an uncomfortable situation for Oberon and me. I managed okay; I just stayed out of their way as much as possible, and dealt with the verbal abuse when I couldn't avoid them. I made it plain, though, that I wouldn't put up with them getting physical with me, and they respected that. Oberon, on the other hand, was really upset, and couldn't convincingly demonstrate that he could defend himself, so they really picked on him something fierce. They didn't actually do him any harm, but they were always chasing him away from the food dish (even though there was plenty there for all of us), swatting him on the nose, biting his ears, and loudly threatening to do much worse. So one day, when one of the humans living there left the door slightly ajar, Oberon made a break for it. Ran off into the woods. In some ways, this made life easier for me, 'cause the place was one cat less crowded now. On the other hand, in some ways it made things worse, because I was the ONLY unwelcome cat, instead of there being an easier mark handy for them to take their frustrations out on. But in any case, I missed my brother. At first, I figured he'd be back soon enough; "Mighty Hunter" is not a role he plays well, not being bright enough to outsmart a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">rutabaga</span>, much less something edible and comparatively smart, like a cricket or a beetle. So I figured that once he got hungry enough, he'd be back. Then, after a couple of days, I figured that the humans would go out and find him; I heard them talking about it upstairs (we mostly lived in the basement.) But eventually it became obvious that he wasn't coming back on his own, and that the humans had given up on finding him. So after a few weeks, when somebody again left the door between the garage and the basement ajar, and the garage door open, I took my chance and went out to find him myself. It wasn't really very hard; he was barely a quarter of a mile away (the entire woods up there wasn't really big enough to hide in; I'll never understand why the humans had so much trouble) and he wasn't really trying to hide anyway (not that he was bright enough to hide successfully if he wanted to). He was just lost. Lost! Less than a mile from where he came from, and he couldn't find his way back. A disgrace to cats everywhere. Still, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him; he looked half starved. I gave him a piece of my mind anyway, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him back to the property line of our temporary housing. "There! That one!" I growled, and gave him a nip on the behind out of frustration. "Go on! It smells like they've even put out food for us." Well, after being without a good meal for so long, he was even more timid than usual. He was afraid not to go back, thanks to me, but was still afraid of the resident cats, and afraid that the people would be upset with him, so it was a couple of days before he'd let our humans pick him up and take him inside. He did eat the cat food that they left out, though, and that gradually calmed him down. (It's amazing what a bit of food will do to calm down a skittish cat.) So after they finally managed to get him inside, I stayed out another couple of days just to explore for a bit, and then wandered on up, knocked on the door, and asked politely to be let back in. The humans were only too happy to oblige, and it turns out that by then, our human had a place that he could keep us at and we didn't have to stay with our unwilling hosts. So it all worked out okay in the end, but only because I didn't depend on any humans to do a cat's job. (Note: Both Titania and Oberon died in early 2002; this story was initially told in the summer of 2001.Jim Yannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04186828144085855483noreply@blogger.com1